Facts and myths about radiation – based on the statements of high school students

Abstract

Large educational research project, addressed to secondary school students, based on a survey, is being carried out in Poland, the Czech Republic and the United States. In the survey the attitudes, preconceptions and misconceptions of several hundred high school students from the three countries will be assessed. The main themes of the survey are: the concepts of radioactivity, matter and energy. The research will be conducted using a seventy-item questionnaire including the following types of questions: open-ended, multiple-choice questions, True-False and using the Likert scale. The preparation of the tool included many stages, including the Delphi technique.One of the steps includes a screen test on a group of 108 students attending three schools. Schools were chosen according to the Perspektywy ranking - ranking of the thousand best schools in Poland: one school placed in the first fifteenth (School A) and two following it: circa about 300th place (Schools B & C). The presentation will concern the various stages of preparing the research tool with particular emphasis on the screening test.The number of examined students from School A and Schools B & C was equal to 62 and 46, respectively. The paper concerns 3 chosen items related to the comparison of the mass of the nucleus and the whole atom: open-ended, true-false and multiple choice. Significant differences in the knowledge of students regarding the comparison of the mass of the nucleus and the mass of the atom from School A and from Schools B & C were noticed.The correlations between students' responses of all 3 questions have been recognized as weak. It seems to be that the students' knowledge connected to this subject is not fixed. We will also discuss how the students' answers influenced the preparation of the broadened version of the key code and the improvement of items.